Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Management Leadership Tommorrow

I got in!

Shortly after I had my epiphany, I met a woman at a Harvard Club event for aspiring MBAs. We talked for a bit and she mentioned that she was in the MLT program. I had heard about it on CNN, but hadn't given it much thought. She offered to give me an informational interview, so I took her up on her offer. I liked what I heard, and I applied back in September

Applicants were not meant to be notified until the first weeks of December, but they sent notification the day before Thanksgiving. I was happy to be able to share some good news with my family. So far, I've only told four of them about my MBA plans (my mom, dad, sister, and uncle). The others will find out in due time, but I didn't want to tell everyone until I was sure. I had tentative plans to apply to law school a few years back and once folks caught wind of that, they started nagging me. I decided that law school wasn't for me, and I still have aunts and uncles asking me why I no longer want a JD.

I'm very excited about the program. It's intensive, but I'm looking forward to the network I'll build and the partnerships I'll make.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Free admissions consultation this morning

Right off the heels of a great weekend of wine tasting and Vietnamese pho, I had a call with an MBA admissions consultant that got me thinking about some things.

1) Should I retake the GMAT? So I'm quite pleased with my 730 and would avoid taking it again at all costs. I'm thinking, though, that perhaps taking it again if I can score 760+ might do even more to help me offset my lower than average 3.0. But taking that test is an energy drain. I don't even want to think about the amount of commitment it would take for me to ensure at least a 30 point increase. There's also a chance that I could score lower than a 730 on my second attempt. I know most will tell you that the difference between a 760 and a 730 is negligible when it comes to admissions, but it might not be the same in my case.

2) Should I look at some more safety schools? There's no doubt about it at this point. I'm going to B-school whether I go to an M7 or not. There's a good chance that I'll get rejected from the top schools due to age and gpa. I had already decided that I was perfectly content with going to USC Marshall and have done a lot of research on it, but perhaps there are other schools that are good fits for me that I have overlooked. To that end, the consultant recommended that I look at Ross.

3) Should I take more additional courses and where should I take them? I'd already planned to take four courses before applying (one is currently in progress), but the consultant says that 3 is actually more than enough and taking them at a community college is fine. This is a relief considering how much the courses at the Cal extension school cost.

That said, I'm thinking I'll apply to 6 schools total (that seems like a lot and is subject to change). I've broken my list down into three groups: Reach, Reasonable, Safety. The lists are long now and I'm hoping to whittle them just by reading about the schools online and talking to alumni...

Here are my reach schools with comments

Kellogg -- One of my good friends from undergrad went here and she loved it. She's two years older than I am and when I grow up I want to be her. lol. But she did give it a glowing review and I would love to move to Chicago. Although they've been trying to get away from the reputation, I'd love to take classes from their marketing profs. They also place a lot of their students in Consulting so I'd have the flexibility of staying in marketing (I will blog about that in a subsequent post) and transitioning into management consulting.

Chicago -- I've got to do research on this school. The same friend who raved about Kellogg did not like Booth. She felt it wasn't enough of a a consulting school for her. The admissions consultant recommended I take a look at it, so I will. Outside of the rankings, I just don't know much about it.

Stanford -- I loved my visit to Stanford. But I have a feeling that even if I were a stellar applicant with no blemishes, applying to Stanford might be a waste of an application fee. The program is so small and they reject so many well qualified and dynamic applicants that it seems almost like a crap shoot (at least from the applicant's perspective. I am sure that the admissions committees have plenty of rhyme and reason behind their decisions).

Wharton -- After scoring a 730, I told myself that I'd take a look at Wharton. I'm liking what I see so far. It would afford me the same flexibility that I'd get from Kellogg and it'd be in a city other than Boston. From my research, it also seems as though they are more apt to take an "older" applicant (I'll be 28 when I apply), but I need to do more research to determine if it's in my top 2 or not.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Stanford Visit

I have loads of time I need to take off before the year ends so I decided to take a Personal Day and visit Stanford! I've been to Stanford more times than I can count (one of my best friends went there for Law School and I visited a few times in HS), so I already knew how gorgeous the campus was. Visiting as a prospective MBA student gave me a new perspective.

In HS, I got into Stanford and ultimately decided to go to Harvard because the students at Stanford were a little too excited to be there for me. Typing that makes me sound like a cold hearted meanie, but at the time, I didn't want a California experience. Reading this you might get the idea that Harvard was cold and impersonal but that's not quite the case. I developed lasting friendships during my years there and being apart of the Harvard culture and traditions is something that I am proud of to this day. I wanted something that was totally different on a totally different coast and I got it at Harvard and to be honest Stanford was just too close to home. I had nightmares of my parents popping by casually on the weekends. (These fears were probably unfounded. My little sister is at UCSB now -- just 2 1 /2 hours north of LA instead of 5 -- and my parents never visit her lol).

Now that I'm much much older my motivations for pursuing education and choosing a specific MBA program are much different. Ideally, I'll live in California post MBA and raise a family there. I'd even love to move back to LA sometime in the future to be even closer to them. With that in mind, Stanford is actually an attractive option, and after visiting again at the age of 27, I'm all about the California experience that Stanford offers. Some take aways...

  1. The campus is still gorgeous. I didn't bother with the campus tour because I've seen everything already.
  2. Students are friendly and welcoming but not overly-so. I sat in on a class and the professor asked the visitors to introduce ourselves. They all gave us a round of applause after we told them what round we'd apply in. I also ran into two people I'd gone to undergrad with and they were of course very helpful and I'm talking with them to get some more info on the GSB and how they came to choose it.
  3. I do like the case method. I found myself wanting to participate in the discussion and partake in the various role plays.
  4. I think I would prefer a small to medium sized program. This is kind of a surprise to me as I tend to prefer larger organizations when it comes to employment. I had a brief stint at an ad agency that had less than 20 people and I was miserable. During my MBA research, I've found myself instantly attracted to smaller programs (Tuck and Stanford for example). I haven't even visited Tuck and was actually prepared not to like it (too small, too cold, too much in the middle of nowhere), but the presentation and alumni testimonials instantly won me over.
That said, Stanford is an insanely competitive program and I can see why. I have added it to my long list of schools.

GMAT is over and done with

I tried to start blogging during GMAT preparation and just got overwhelmed, so I deleted all of my old posts. I studied really hard for a good four months and managed to pull a 730 (47 Q, 42 V, 6AWA). You can't imagine how relieved I was when I hit "report score" and 730 appeared. Barring the unforeseen, I'll never have to think about that test again, and I feel so relieved now that I've gotten it out of the way....

Now on to the good stuff. I've decided to postpone applying until Round 1 and 2 of next year. Doing so will give me adequate time to address my two weaknesses: lower than average GPA, lack of community involvement. I'm currently taking an Intro to Stats Course at an extension school and scored an A on my mid-term. My goal is to take four courses (Stats, Calc, Microeconomics, Accounting) before applying. I also have time to continue my current community service involvement and earn a Competent Communicator designation in my Toastmasters Club. As you can see, I'm gearing up for a very busy year.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Got a 700 - 800 level question right! WOOT!

Might this be a breakthrough in my GMAT Quant study? I certainly hope so. For those who don't know, Manhattan GMAT rates the individual questions in the Official Guide by difficult level. The hardest being 700-800. Today, I got one of those correct. Legitimately! I didn't have to guess at all. This is the perfect end to my Sunday night.

I had my interview with the hiring manager on Friday. He actually did most of the talking and having interviewed for one of these positions before, I kind of know how to play it. This guy likes to talk about MONEY. So if I am going to get hired, I have to show him how I'm going to make him more of it. He flat out asked me in the interview if I'm motivated by money so I'm using that among other things as an indication. He invited me to do a face to face interview that should take place sometime in August. My boss is out on her honey moon, so she has no idea I'm applying. I'm going to email her to let her know, but I doubt that she's checking her email. And I hope she's not. You shouldn't' be working on your darn honeymoon.

Now I need to hit the gym so I can fit back into my suit.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

New Job Prospect?

On a whim I applied for a new position in my company and I've got an interview for it tomorrow. If I do get the position, I might consider delaying my MBA application a year as it would definitely improve my candidacy and would allow me to pay down some of my car loan debt before doing a FT program. I also wouldn't have to worry too much about recommendations because I can have my current boss, my old boss, and the VP write one for me. The VP knows me very well and I love his writing style, but there's no way I can ask him to write me one if I'm still working in his department. I think my current boss will be a bit more understanding, but I'm sure there'd be some initial tension. She once told me she thought I had the potential to be the next President of our division, so while she'd write a good recommendation that would highlight my leadership potential, I think she'd feel a bit betrayed that I'm planning my escape from the industry a year in advance right under her nose.

More Quant study tonight. I've made to do lists for Tomorrow and Saturday. Thankfully I'm off early on Fridays, so I have some time to go to the gym, get some studying in, and do some preparation before my interview. My boyfriend has family friends in town and they're taking us out to dinner tomorrow night. After that I'm sure I'll be perched on my couch with a bottle of wine watching re-runs of the Wire. I need to snag at least two hours tomorrow for study time, so I'm setting my alarm for six o'clock. Yes, six o'clock.

Tonight I also realized that studying for the GMAT is also very much about learning about your really stupid mistakes so that you don't make them again. Tonight I screwed up on an insanely easy problem because I solved the equation, but did not look up to see that they had some constraints on the terms (A had to be greater than B which had to be greater than C). Mistakes like that hurt the most because if you had just slowed down and thought about it for 10 seconds, you would have gotten that question right. ARRGGH. The lining in that cloud is that I know now to be careful of those constraints, and in the next two months of preparation, I'm sure that checking for them is going to become intuitive.

In good news, I'm getting all of the easy questions right (with the exception of the aforementioned). I'm not where I want to be yet, but my foundation in number properties is solid. Now I can build on it. :)

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Quiet Week in the Office

This week most everyone is out at our National Sales Meeting. None of the products I'm working on are front list this time, so I lucked out and don't have to be there. That said, everyone in my office area had to go, and it's very quiet. Plus seeing as how I work in education, most of my clients are out on vacation. The combination makes for a very quiet cubicle.

Last night I sat down and did some OG problems on number properties. I got about 67% right (I understand that it's not about the number you got correct, but the level you're at), but I'm feeling pretty good in the amount correct. At first I was disappointed, and then I remembered when I first started studying for GMAT at the end of June and had a hard time getting through very easy ones due to my being rusty in Math. So I've done some assessment on my performance and have determined the following:

  • I need to go back and restudy exponents, consecutive integers, and the rules of divisibility

  • I probably need to read the small strategy guides twice. When I went back and re-read the bit on consecutive integers today, I realized that my eyes glazed over some pertinent information. The second read after doing some problems was far more in depth. I knew what I got wrong and why it was wrong. Further, I knew where the gaps in knowledge were and what I needed to fill in.'

  • Lastly, doing quant problems after 10PM is not going to work. Even 9:30-10 is pushing it. At that point, I start making silly errors and not reading the question all the way through. I'm thinking I'll do quant problems on Saturdays and Sundays during the day when I'm more alert. Studying Verbal at night is fine. Verbal is not my weak spot and most of what I'm doing now is learning strategies and learning GMAT specific grammar (for instance they are particular about idiomatic expressions like to be and known as. They also don't give two hoots about the passive voice. My 10th grade english teacher would have a fit if she knew this).

In other news, I was able to get a quick work out in today. HIIT for the win!

Monday, July 26, 2010

Beginning of Week 2

The homework was rather light for the first week in comparison to what's in store for the following weeks. Finding a time and place to focus and study is key. A few times this past week, I caught myself studying at around 11 and not being able to retain a thing.

We finished up Number Properties last week. For some reason I keep getting confused when it comes to LCMs and GCFs. My plan is to go back and re-read that portion and re-do the drill problems. I've also created a list of things that I need to make flash cards of. Divisibility rules, for instance, is something I should probably commit to memory, and it'll be much easier studying flash cards than reading books on the subway.

I've been going back and re-doing the problems I missed on my CAT exam and redoing some of the problems that I got correct by throwing a Hail Mary pass. Geometry is still a weak point for me just because I really don't remember some of the properties (i.e. parallel lines intersected by a transverse line). That is also something I should probably commit to memory, but I am submitting fully to the Manhattan study plan, so I will get to those in a few weeks.

In class on Sunday, we were introduced to diagramming for Critical Reasoning. It helps to have structure and a clear set strategy for finding answers. I've been apprehensive about adapting their strategy for sentence corrections, but I'm going to give it a try for a week or two to see if I improve my accuracy. What I'm really anticipating is the strategy on Reading Comprehension. During my first practice CAT, my mind started to wander during the RC portions, so if I can get a method for extracting the most important information, or staying focused then I'm all for it.

As far as other news, I am enjoying my new apartment so much. Having a patio is great. My boyfriend and I sat outside and barbecued for dinner. We had ribs, burgers, chicken, corn, almost anything you can think of. We of course did not eat it all last night. There's plenty of food for the rest of the week which means less cooking for me. True Blood was also really good tonight. I can't wait to see how the situation with Tara turns out. I was actually okay with Bill dying as there are other characters I find more interesting, but if we don't have Bill, then we don't have the Bill and Sookie love affair, and if we don't have that then we have no show.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Day 2

Things I've done today:

1) Got through 28 pages on Number Properties and finished some problems during lunch.

2) Went back to my recent CAT exam and redid the Data Sufficiency questions I missed using the AD-BCE technique I just picked up. It helped tremendously to organize my thoughts. Where has this technique been all of my life?

3) Scheduled an interview for a mentorship program at the Y.

4) Procrastinated at work.

Things I need to do tonight:

1) Laundry :(